


not all truths are easily told

by Nashira



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:10:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nashira/pseuds/Nashira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin cannot seem to tell Morgana how alike they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not all truths are easily told

**Author's Note:**

> This was written just on a whim, it's not edited or beta'd. Sorry. Hope you enjoy it.

**One**

He studies the way she moves when she thinks she's alone. Her steps are soft but her smile is gone, she wilts without the pretence of having to be happy; like a flower deprived of the sun. Sometimes he comes around the corner and catches her swaying and twirling with her eyes closed --- an imagined dance, or sometimes sparring partner.

When she sees him she stops, the smile comes back, the curtain falls over her sorrows and she pretends they are nothing.

The first time he kisses her, she tastes like honeyed mead and lavender, her breath trembles with uncertainty, but Morgana doesn't let that stop her. She pulls him closer, her hands sliding into the gap between his jacket and tunic as her body pressed against his.

He has to tell her she's not alone... but his tongue forgets all words and sense and he is drawn back to her lips again before he can say  _I am like you._

 

**Two**

He doesn't have to kiss her first anymore. Like some part of her knows, some part of her can see how alike they are she is drawn to him. It's just kisses and laughter and sometimes his hands drift over her dress and she pulls at his neckerchief to bite at the flesh beneath. They have a rhythm, a dance that even Merlin cannot trip up on.

Sometimes she gets him to stay, in the wee hours of the night when no one would search for him or dare come into her chambers. They sit in the old chair by the fire, not speaking but just resting. Usually, she closes her eyes and falls asleep while he holds her. Sometimes she is too scared to sleep and loses herself in between his hands and his lips and she doesn't even care that she aches for someone to understand her. Merlin knows who she is and does not hate her, and she thinks, maybe this can be enough.

Now and then he sees the gold spark in her eyes as the fire grows dim in the hearth, just before it flickers and jumps back to life. He means to say  _I have magic, let me teach you_ , but it comes out only as a kiss to the top of her head and a prayer to whatever god yet lives that she will not hate him if he tells her.

 

**Three**

In his little room, he practices. Magic, sure, but harder than that, harder than understanding the dragon was practicing telling Morgana. For him, she smiles and he thinks that perhaps it's real but he knows she aches for something more than just a boy... just a man who will hold her in the night. She was just like him. He had been scared and untrained, he hadn't known what to do with himself... he had been so alone, and there she sat, so close and yet miles upon miles away.

 _I have to tell her,_  he thinks, slamming his hand into the wall and then immediately regretting it. 'Ow.'

He goes to see her when Gwen has gone home and Arthur is well asleep, he doesn't knock but she is sitting in their chair by the fire with a book in her lap waiting, and she looked up before the door had even swung open enough to let him in.

Her eyes are wet with tears when he moves to her, sliding into the seat beside her.

Another nightmare, sure enough. Another vision that to Morgana was almost more real than when she was awake. Merlin held her, kissing away her tears as she told him her worries, what she had seen.

'The draughts never work... and this book says a seers power cannot be taken from them, not without near divine intervention at least.' where she had gotten the book, he didn't ask. Gaius had all manner of books and it wouldn't surprise him if she had managed to smuggle one out, or get into the archives hidden below the castle where all the magic objects Uther had stolen still sat.

'Morgana...' he begins, but she doesn't want to talk. She wants something real, something true, something just between them.

They make love like they first kissed, slow and unsure at first, but it isn't long until he maps out the lines of her body like they are the most important coastline man had ever discovered, and his I love you's and I'm sorry's are lost somewhere between her breast and the sharp line of her hips and he wishes she could understand what he wanted to say to her the way she understands the taste of his lips.

 

**Four**

He wakes on the rug before her fire, now nothing but embers and  he is alone there. He looks for her and finds Morgana washing herself with a rag and a basin of cold water.

When he gets up to go to her, his feet come to an abrupt stop from the look she gives him.

'You have magic too.' she says, and the air rushes out of his lungs in a sharp sound that makes him wonder if she just strangled him. 'Wha..' he begins to say, not to tell her she's wrong so much but to ask her how she knows, why would she think that but he is cut off again.

'Last night.' is all she says and he remembers the way her eyes had glowed in the heat of their passion, how he had felt more drawn to her in that moment, as if his soul was trying to escape his body and entwine with hers... had she seen his eyes echo hers? He didn't even know.

She lets him wash but then shows him the door. It's too early for this, or maybe he left it too late.

 

**Five**

She watches him now, with eyes wide open. Wondering how long he had planned to keep it from her, no doubt, but how could he explain that the words danced over his tongue and flew away out of fear, or not wanting to hurt her, or just wanting to give her something easy.

It's over. She locks her bedroom door at night and sleeps, screams to herself. When he sees her swaying in the halls, she seems to know before he is close enough to hear and turns away.

One night, long after he has given up hope of her forgiveness, he finds her sitting on his little bed.

'Teach me.' was all she said before her lips met his and her hands tangled in his shirt and he thought to himself,  _God, never let me lie to her again._


End file.
